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I finally got around to transcribing an interview that Miéville gave at a writer's festival earlier this year where he was talking about his new book (Railsea), writing comics, and his place in the fantastic genre. He also took questions from the crowd, and I found his answer to a rather broad question about structure really solid. It's helped me out in how I'm thinking about structuring my first novel, so I thought I'd post it here in case it helps someone else.

I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to deal with structure? How do you deal with it?

"You’re talking about writing a novel, right? I think it’s kind of like...do you know Kurt Schwitters, the artist? He was an experimental artist in the 1940s who made these very strange cut up collages and so on and very strange abstract paintings. And I was just seeing an exhibition of his, and one of the things that is really noticeable is he is known for these wild collages, and then interspersing these are these really beautiful, very formally traditional oil paintings, portraits, and landscapes and so on.

And this is that old—I mean it’s a bit of a cliché--but the old thing about knowing the rules and being able to obey them before you can break them. Now I think that that is quite useful in terms of structure for novels because one of the things that stops people writing is kind of this panic at the scale of the thing, you know? So I would say, I would encourage anyone that’s writing a novel to be as out there as they possibly can. But as a way of getting yourself kick-started, why not go completely traditional?

Think three-act structure, you know. Think rising action at the beginning of the journey and then some sort of cliff-hanger at the end of act one. Continuing up to the end of act two, followed by a big crisis at the end of act three, followed by a little dénouement. Think 30,000 words, 40,000 words, 30,000 words, so what’s that, around 100,000 words. Divide that up into 5,000 word chapters so you’re going 6/8/6. I realise this sounds incredibly sort of drab, and kind of mechanical. But my feeling is that the more you can kind of formalise and bureaucratise those aspects of things. It actually paradoxically liberates you creatively because you don’t need to worry about that stuff.

If you front load that stuff, plant all that out in advance and you know the rough outline of each chapter in advance, then when you come to each day’s writing, you’re able to go off in all kinds of directions because you know what you have to do in that day. You have to walk this character from this point to this point and you can do that in the strangest way possible. Whereas if you’re looking at a blank piece of paper and saying where do you I go from here you get kind of frozen.
The unwritten novel has a basilisk’s stare, and so I would say do it behind your own back by just formally structuring it in that traditional way. And then when you have confidence and you’ve gained confidence in that, you can play more odder games with it. But it’s really not a bad way to get started."

This is infinitely more useful than that "Writers write" nonsense from Chuck Wendig (much as I love the guy). Of course writers write. If I juggled, I wouldn't be a writer, I'd be a fucking juggler.

As far as China goes though, there is a lot to be said for the traditional dramatic structure. It's a nearly-failsafe foundation for a story and there are a bajillion ways to tweak it and customize it to your own tale, while still giving your story a familiar rhythm that can lull your reader into the dream-state that is suspension of disbelief. If you keep construction traditional, it is easier to make people swallow your subversion of trope.

There's a reason some version of "once upon a time" is an incantation spoken in almost every society across the planet.

I drive to work the same way every day. I follow that set structure so that I don't have to think about the drive. The drive is boring, I do it every day. What I'm thinking about when I drive is what I'm going to do that day, what is going to happen that evening, or what happened the previous day.

Using a proven structure lets you pour your imagination (and allows the reader's attention to flow) into what makes your story unique. Your twists, your characters, your voice. Many readers are cool with a 6/8/6 structure as long as the story is so good that they forget what chapter they're reading.

If they bust out their literary ruler and begin measuring your structure, it means that your dangly parts aren't as interesting as the basic framework you've hung them off of.

A better way of putting it might be only break the rules with examined intent, because what you're attempting can't be expressed within the rules. I feel the exact same way about grammar. Nothing drives me nuttier than people who write with poor grammar to sound edgy or modern.

This is infinitely more useful than that "Writers write" nonsense from Chuck Wendig

Let's pretend China and Chuck are talking about building cars.

Chuck is saying you need to know how each piece of the motor works. The motor is the heart of the beast and you need to tear apart each valve and spring and work out how they all fit together in small chunks before you tackle the large bits.

China is saying you need to design the car first and don't worry about how the motor fits inside because all that can be learned by watching other car builders.

Both are valid approaches to writing. Neither invalidates the other. Spending time planning your book should be offset by time spent writing other books. Every writer exists on the spectrum between the planning and the doing.

Chuck is saying you need to know how each piece of the motor works. The motor is the heart of the beast and you need to tear apart each valve and spring and work out how they all fit together in small chunks before you tackle the large bits.

How do you get this from "writers write"? To me, using your analogy, this would be analogous with saying the equivalent of, "Drivers drive! Just turn the key in the ignition!"

I'm not saying Wendig doesn't have a ton of useful advice for writing (he does, and I read Terrible Minds all the time) but that this is about the least useful of all of the things I've ever heard him say with regards to writing.

People who wish to be writers too often talk about the hows and whys. They argue technique, varying advice (as we are doing now) and so forth. They often fail at the most basic concept of being a writer - the act of sitting down and writing with or without inspiration and planning.

Writing teaches the most basic points of communication. It teaches clarity, rhythm, flow. The student learns how to cobble phrases into sentences. They learn paragraph structure; introducing, explaining, expanding and summarising ideas. It doesn't matter about the structure at this point - learning simple communication is the reason why writers should sit down and write.

China is discussing about structure. This is important as well, but I find his simple overview of story structure to be no more important than Chuck's exasperated plea for writers to do what they're supposed to do.

They often fail at the most basic concept of being a writer - the act of sitting down and writing with or without inspiration and planning.

Dude, you are preaching to the choir.

I find his simple overview of story structure to be no more important than Chuck's exasperated plea for writers to do what they're supposed to do.

It's certainly no more important (if you're not willing to put ass-in-chair and do the work, no amount or type of literary theory is going to help you) but it is, in my opinion, a hell of a lot more informative.

In my opinion, any discussion of the 'importance' of advice comes down to the individual. If I were someone who talks about writing but never sits down to write, Chuck's advice might really hit home to me. If I were someone who was planning a novel and was getting frustrated with false starts, China's might seem more important.

;). Lovely fella. Looks like a man who would murder you for looking at him funny (shaved head, tattoos, massively stacked), but speaks like a Cambridge don (polite, erudite, and a surprisingly soft voice for such a big guy.)

Looks like a man who would murder you for looking at him funny (shaved head, tattoos, massively stacked), but speaks like a Cambridge don (polite, erudite, and a surprisingly soft voice for such a big guy.)

Hah, reminds me of my Japanese college professor Washio Ishii. He was in his eighties, had an eye patch, and walked with a lurch from a stroke, so he basically was the most intimidating-looking samurai-pirate character you'd ever hope to see. But he was the most polite, most friendly, and most softspoken man I've ever met in my life.

It would honestly read like bullshit if it wasn't for the picture haha. Don't take that the wrong way.

Exactly why I included it, heh. He's actually written a book too, called Memoirs of a Samurai's Grandson, about his experiences dealing with the occupation of Tokyo during WWII. I want to say he spoke face-to-face with General Hideki Tojo at one point as a child and describes it in his memoirs, but it's been almost a decade since I read that book. So he might have mentioned some other Japanese general I'm less familiar with.

EDIT: You can't see those gradeschoolers' faces in this photo, but if you could I'm sure they'd look kind of like this.

I could write for hours on this and still not get close to it, it's so important but very hard to explain.

The closest I can get is this: each chapter should answer one question, whilst asking another two. So the reader constantly feels like they are progressing towards an answer, but the answer keeps getting more complex, keeps getting further away from them. Does that make any kind of sense?

To expand on it - one of the questions you ask, typically the one at the end of the chapter, should have an immediate pull, a kind of mini cliffhanger. (What's going to happen next? How are they going to get out of that one? What is she going to say?)

The second question, which you may choose to conceal in the middle of the chapter so the reader is barely aware of it, is likely to be more long term, perhaps even abstract (Is victory worth it at any cost? What is the value of a human life? Will those two ever get together or will they always be apart?)

That way, your structure both has an immediate cliffhanger pull (wanting to know what will happen right in the next chapter) and a more overarching pull (wanting to know how the novel as a whole will turn out).

Quieter chapters will ask/answer the second kind of question. Faster paced/action chapters will focus more on the first kind of question. Alternating the two different kinds of chapters creates a satisfying variance.

This is all a massive simplification, but a good starting point. Good TV (The Wire, Breaking Bad etc) is great to study this kind of thing.

It makes sense. It coincides with a theory I've been developing (by watching a lot of Breaking Bad, coincidentally) -- but I wasn't able to pin it down quite so elegantly. I didn't think about asking quiet questions in each chapter until your post, and that seems to be the missing link.

The mini cliffhangers make sense -- and I think a lot of writers absolutely kill themselves because they don't end their chapters in the right place -- but it's also more obvious. YA novels in particular tend to end almost every chapter with a cliffhanger (the problem being that every cliffhanger is a BIG cliffhanger instead of varying pace with smaller ones).

Asking quiet questions is a great way to look at things, though. I'll be using that for sure.

Yes, you can't end every chapter on a super cliffhanger or they lose their effect. Using a chapter ending to linger on a significant moment and ask a subtle question is great too, and balancing the two together...that's the real trick.

Also, may I add that a good way of disciplining yourself into writing in the structure he suggests, is that it doesn't necessarily have to be in order.

Following the structure of my novel I became "frozen" at chapter 12. Instead of forcing myself to write that chapter, I instead wrote chapter 15, a chapter in which something very dramatic happens (according to my plot & chapter plan).

Following the structure of my novel I became "frozen" at chapter 12. Instead of forcing myself to write that chapter, I instead wrote chapter 15, a chapter in which something very dramatic happens (according to my plot & chapter plan).

I find this technique very helpful as well. If I get blocked on a scene I will immediately jump to the next one and keep writing from there. Usually by the time I've written a few unrelated scenes, I've come up with a better idea of how to tackle the original one.

I envy anyone who can write out of order. I have reasonably good outlines (my 100k novel had something like 16 pages worth of outline, in paragraph form) and yet I need to have WRITTEN things in the order they come to feel comfortable going on to the next.

Definitely advice that served him well for King Rat (his first novel) and then he played a bit more with his subsequent books until Iron Council, when he started really messing with it in Iron Council (and later Embassytown.)

Mieville is a stange author to me. I really like his slightly insane worlds. With interesting characters, strange dialogue and great world building.

Yet, the last three books I've read of his - Iron Council, Kraken and Railsea - have all managed to capture me from the get go and then let me down at the end. In comparison to Perdido Stret Station and Scar his latest books have seemed to lack any real crecendo. It gets to the end, and it sure is a strange place, but it just isn't doing it for me. I guess it's a matter of taste but I feel like he's dropped the ball in these three books.

Odd, I found the endings of both Kraken and Iron Council to be their best parts. (Railsea I'll agree with.)

Kraken could have been served better with its ending if Billy had used his scientific rigor more through the rest of the book, but the clever way he touched on both science vs religion and the subtle religious rebirth at the end was great.

Iron Council's ending is flat-out the best part of the book for me. I found it much harder to get there. But the concept of the Iron Council is the most apt summation of Mieville's Marxist utopia politics I could ever hope for.